Plea In Supreme Court Seeks Uniform Retirement Age For Supreme Court And High Court Judges

In essence, the plea seeks that the retirement age of High Court Judges be raised to 65 years, from 62 years.

The Petitioner states that under the present system, High Court judges are forced to retire at the age of 62. On one hand, this system causes the bench to lose tremendous legal experience and on the other hand, pendency of cases before the High Courts keep increasing.

He insists that uniformity in retirement age of Judges will create a "pool" of experienced judges in High Courts, which will be extremely useful for deciding the cases of extreme importance or which require deep and thorough knowledge for interpretation of the Constitution.

Uniformity in retirement age will further enable the High Court Judges to discharge judicial work more independently, and without any expectation to move the Supreme Court, where the retirement age is 65 years.

"Uniformity in the retirement age is not only necessary to reduce pendency of cases but also essential to attract and retain the best legal talent in the bench. To reduce judicial and procedural error, India needs more experienced Judges," the plea states.

Other grounds taken by the Petitioner are as follows:

• Due to early retirement, the finest advocates are not willing to become judges;
• Uniformity in retirement age will minimize the apprehension of subordination between the Supreme Court and High Courts;
• Increasing retirement age of High Court Judges and bringing it at par with that of Supreme Court Judges will strengthen rule of law, which is an integral part of Article 14 and also secure the fundamental right of speedy justice, guaranteed under Article 21;
• Uniformity in retirement age of Judges will ensure independence and separation of judiciary in spirit of Article 50. It will also bring the Indian Justice System at par with the worldwide norms & standards of Higher Courts of developed countries viz. US, UK, Canada etc.;
• In developed countries, retirement age of Higher Court Judges varies from 70-80 years and in some countries, they work for lifetime.

It is significant to note that the last increase in the retirement age of the High Court judges was made in 1963, when it was raised from 60 to 62 years. The latest proposal to increase the retirement age was mooted in 2008 and the Cabinet gave its nod to increase retirement age of High Court and Supreme Court Judges in 2010. However, due to political hostility, it was put on the backburner.

Thereafter, several recommendations have been made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee and the Law Commission, to increase the retirement age of High Court Judges in response to huge backlog of cases.

In June 2019, then CJI Ranjan Gogoi requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to raise the retirement of High Court judges as 65 years.

In December that year, a private members' Bill was introduced by MP and Advocate P. Wilson seeking to increase the retirement age of high court judges from 62 to 65.

In this backdrop, the plea states that the Central Government has done nothing to give effect to the above recommendations or to increase the retirement age for Judges. Instead, in March this year, Law Minister RS Prasad stated in the Rajya Sabha, that there is no proposal to increase the retirement age of the Judges of High Courts.

The Petitioner has thus urged the Top Court to direct the Centre to take steps to make the retirement age of judges of High Courts and Supreme Court uniform.

It is stated that being the protector of right to speedy justice, the Supreme Court may use its plenary constitutional power to declare that the Judges of High Courts shall retire at the age of 65 years.

Alternatively, the Court may declare that the words 'sixty-two years' used in Article 27(1) are arbitrary, irrational and offend Article 14.

The plea is filed through Advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey.

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